MillvilleWx

That storm would be the penultimate blizzard verbatim. That has shades of 1993 written on it. A sharp shortwave dig phases across the SE US and causes the whole 5H axis to go negative east of the Mississippi. I would do unspeakable things for that to occur. Interesting that's a potential evolution in the cards. I'm utilizing the deterministic as an ensemble at this point to gauge potential. There's multiple ways to score in this pattern, but failure is 100% on the table when looking at how the pattern will evolve. I hope we hit on at least one.

Couldn’t even get the rain part

Was 70° at 130PM in Edgewater and then dropped 10° in 5 minutes when the flow shifted off the Bay. Been stuck near 60° since.

I don’t see anything wrong with what’s being advertised on the ensembles. Deterministic will vary next few days before potentially latching onto something. Even then, the 5H evolution can lead to complexities that won’t be solved until closer to game time. We are still 7+ days away from anything appreciable from any system with the evolving pattern. Stuff won’t be rolling until a day or two after New Years. I don’t see much to be alarmed about. If there is one thing we can take away right now is that it’ll feel like deep winter after any snow/ice falls on the following Monday through the foreseeable future. Highly anomalous cold is almost becoming a certainty at this point. I would prepare now and get ahead of everyone else before this area starts to go mad.

The Germans are pretty good at things but they still have some ways before being considered useful in numerical modeling. Has its moments, but not really trustworthy yet when looking at verification.

This is TEXTBOOK right here. My goodness

The ONLY gripe on that, and I mean this is legit the only thing that makes this not perfection is the ridge axis out west is a little west of where perfection lies. Over the Cascades instead of Boise. That’s pretty much it though. That is truly unbelievable to see. It shows the potential of the pattern. Just another iteration of what could be. Just gotta be patient and keep an eye on the overall long wave progression. Fun times ahead tracking this all.

With the advertised cold, he can just keep them out on his balcony.

This is nearing textbook status at this range. Amazing

AI has done very well with tropical system steering. Very different storm structure and mechanism for steering, so the jury is still out on mid-latitude cyclones, however there’s a lot of good data on its ability to pinpoint areal QPF coverage and pointing where heavier precip will be located. Not great in magnitude with convective backgrounds, but knowing where is a big plus. Not perfect, but helps with forecasting. Long range beyond D5 for synoptic scale is hit or miss. Something we‘ll be assessing at WPC end of season for verification.

Personal stuff

I stirred the pot with my late note post. Whoops I didn’t mean to cause alarm. I wanted to point out to some who follow that seeing the signals on the ensembles and deterministic for dry cold are on the table and it’s one thing to keep in mind. I also mentioned that I do love what I see in the ensembles. I’ll take my chances with this setup any day. Plus, one of the things that could happen is sneaky snow squall type events with this type of Arctic discharge. There’s a lot to be excited about! I just temper expectations because a failure spot is still on the table. Most here know that, but some might not, so I wanted to make sure the base is covered. Hate to say it, but I’ve become a person whose glass is 3/4 empty these days on a lot of things. Sorry if I came off doom and gloom.

Kevin, just a heads up. The people who work the models are absolutely not completely off for the Holidays and that’s also not how NWP works. Models will work the same year round, regardless of holidays. Data input is not done manually. The team at NCEP are rock stars at making sure data assimilation is working properly and the data gets out to the world.

I'll be straight up with you guys. I am much more afraid of getting stiffed on precipitation than I am with cold for upcoming pattern. This isn't me sounding any alarms on what is being proposed. If you want a chance at snow, this is heading in the right direction. However, there is absolutely a way we get very little snow and a ton of dry cold with the end product. I don't want to see January 1977 show up in the analogs. That would be so depressing to see.

I hope not. What an absolutely brutal stretch. A ton of cold, record cold at that and very little snow to show for it. That would make many here pretty unhappy. I would not want that scenario and that’s sort of what I’m seeing on the GFS. If we miss the boat on the front end of the PV drifting down….I will personally be pretty annoyed and ready for spring.

That period of the 4th through the 12th will need to be monitored super closely. There could be as many as 3 windows of opportunity in that 8-9 day stretch. GFS showed multiple ways to score some winter around these parts and there's more evolutions that would be workable with the progression of the Pacific along with transitory blocking to our northeast. It's a ways away and could very well shift, but the trends are friendly at the moment.

If you look at the soundings, there is zero reason for the precip to be at 0.00 across Central MD. The HRRR looks very similar, same progression, and soundings look identical and it's closer to 0.01-0.1" areawide. No idea what caused that one.

Only snuck to 30° here in the low lands. Already coming down a bit with the sun about to set. Amazing stretch of cold

It’s one of the reasons I don’t say anything unless there is solid evidence to the potential for something. I don’t think people here realize how many storms this area misses compared to hits. I feel like some people think we live in New England. We are the same latitude as Lisbon, Portugal…. We are actually very fortunate we can even get snow here thanks to our proxy to Canada and the bridging from Russia to supply cold air.

Noticed this too when assessing guidance as the 00z comes in. Can't say I hate it. The 6hr precip panels were actually very nice to look at for the period of interest after 1/1. I'm keeping the faith as we turn the calendar forward.

Great post! A lot of people freak out when they hear about the dreaded WAR/SER thinking everything is bad. I actually don't mind some SER influence so long as the thermal gradient lies somewhere south of here, mainly between CVA and SVA. This is one way to score in Ninas and can produce some cold smoke type events that don't necessarily need a bunch of QPF to cash. This season is still not one I'm banking on a big storm just given all that has to go right for it to occur, but we can manage with a variety of setups with this being one of the better ones to chose from for a light to moderate type event.

Happy Anniversary @mappy!!

I’ve been thinking if we get any breaks in the LR pattern for snow potential, it would likely occur during January-March. Still thinking we miss on a big one, but as @psuhoffmannoted, it only takes one stroke of timing luck and we can get the goods. I’m out on anything until after the New Years, but I’ll of course keep peeking at what’s to come.

One of the greatest snowstorms I ever witnessed. Had 4.5”/hr at the height with pure TSSN+ for over a hour. Measured right around 20” in Carney. Randallstown had over 2’ The things I would do for that storm again

I’ll take the under on the 12z GFS outcome of Boxing Day 2: Electric Bugaloo